Flaming Cats (No Dogs)
by lalunaticscribe
Summary: PILOT. Part 3 of my Floating (Under)world series. "Photojournalist, hell-cat, and now corpse magnet. And he's just a monster cat for now. Are you planning to keep him for the three years needed to turn him into into a nekomata, Asami-sama?" AU. Now with new chapter!
1. Chapter 1

_**Flaming Cats (No Dogs)**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

Usually, any of Asami Ryuichi's new squeezes did not last the week. Nor did they usually bring new corpses to give Kirishima a whole new set of headaches.

"Photojournalist, hell-cat, and now corpse magnet," he listed off to his boss. "And he's just a monster cat for now. Are you planning to keep him for the three years needed to turn him into into a _nekomata_ , Asami-sama?"

Smoke drifted from the heart of an ember glowing on the tip of a burning Dunhill cigarette. It seemed, for a moment, that the boss was more a part of that floating world from which Takaba the – and Kirishima Kei meant that word literally – _monster_ had spawned. "So we sink them deeper. What's the problem?"

"Corpses have a bad habit of appearing around Takaba, thankfully none of ours yet," Kirishima replied. "However, you must admit that those same corpses standing up again and fighting to defend Takaba when they were clearly after his life seconds before receiving a bullet through the forehead is... unlikely."

Gold eyes narrowed. That very incident had happened right in Hong Kong.

"Asami-sama. Our jobs are complicated enough without walking corpses."

A touch of ash floated down after a ring-encrusted finger tapped the cigarette. Slowly, Asami reached for his "Kirishima. This is _my_ hell-cat. After none of us picked up on Arbatov's flaming bird, or that Fei Long managed to figure out Akihito's... foibles... before we did, or that we needed to rely on a human-eating fox to get to Akihito. Never. Again."

A book thumped onto the desk, and Asami rolled the drawer shut. "Perhaps you should broaden your world-view. There may be simpler books, but Koizumi Yakumo is probably around the time of Akihito's entry into society. Get to reading."

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Flaming Cats (No Dogs) – Ichigo ichie**_

 **Because I needed schmoopy fluff for motivation. – LLS**

* * *

 **一期一会 –** **Asami POV**

"You're _where_?!"

" _Adachi_!" Akihito yelled over the static of the lines. " _The town, not the field. Well, part of the field..._ "

I rubbed my forehead with the hand not occupied with my cellphone. Barely three hours since the demon cat had dropped off the grid, and he had managed three hundred kilometres into another province since. It was definitely strange forces at work, as far as Takaba Akihito was concerned. "And what are you doing there?"

" _Well,_ Dad _,_ " he mocked, " _I'm delivering a message for Godmother. It's gonna take longer than I thought, since the other person's not in. I hope that hag isn't visiting other people again, I'm not going to Mt Kirishima..._ "

I contemplated it, licking my lips. I'd considered making a joke about the mountain and Muhammad, or in this case Kirishima, but whatever my _bakeneko_ said was usually meant to be taken literally. Aokigahara was a fairly good example. "The person or the volcano?"

" _Haha, bastard. Please don't start a gang war while I'm away._ "

"I would hate for you to miss out on such entertainment." Unbidden, the words came out: "Be careful."

" _Bye, scumbag._ "

I disconnected the call and set the cellphone down. Again, Shinjuku seemed bland and colourless, so unlike that night.

* * *

The first time we'd met, he had jumped down a building and disappeared.

It had been so damn frustrating. The svelte photographer had actually broken Kirishima's leg with one hit. And then Takaba had come so close to the trap, only to double back. Then Yamazaki had just up and died, after setting the trap that failed to catch anybody.

Humiliatingly, I had had to visit Takaba in his own house, and the brat jumped down another building and survived. It'd taken ten men, but finally I had him, and was planning on showing the brat the consequences of bad choices.

Who knew, the brat was not only allergic to alcohol, but got high on _catnip_. More accurately, _matatabi_. The drug must've rotted his brain, for then Takaba had turned the tables on me with glowing yellow lamp-like eyes, after tearing apart with his bare hands top-grade leather restraints, hit himself in the face with a wad of chain – and hit my left hand in the process – and simply... well, got high.

We'd fought. We'd fucked. I still had the scratches to prove it, and Takaba Akihito had probably gone away with worrying brain damage and the delusion of being a cat.

Then the brat simply had to fall sick with a worrying forty-degree centigrade fever, sleep like the dead for three days, and end it in the middle of one of the worst storms of the year.

"Wait, what are you doing?" The glass window broke with Takaba's punch.

"Finding Godmother."

"There's a door! Do you jump out of windows all the time?" Maybe, just worryingly-

"Uh... I don't remember?"

Oh no... The brightest spark, turned mad because of the drug... and the fever. "I'll ready a car for you. Get dressed."

"Thanks, but I got this. I'm a cat, remember?"

"You're delusional, Takaba. I- The alcohol destroyed your self-preservation."

"Oh." A careless shrug, and a smile like a warm sunbeam. "But you'd better not get caught yet, you bastard! One day I'm gonna have revenge on you!"

And then the brat had jumped. Again.

I pledged, there and then, to start paying for Takaba's medical care for the rest of the brat's existence, because the brain damage had also killed any self-preservation the young photographer had had.

Lilies. He got high off lilies.

I sent a bouquet of Casablanca to the young reporter. If he survived...

He must survive.

* * *

Takaba Akihito had emphasised many times that he was a cat.

It was only when I had kidnapped him to the Shisui Clinic, that I finally discovered that the brat wasn't lying.

I had good reason to want his recuperation. The last time I'd met him, he was serving as a part-time waiter and healing from a broken leg. Then he'd accidentally crossed Feilong's revival and disappeared for a week. Somehow my thoughts had torn towards him, and the colour that surrounded his each and every movement.

And Maeda. A situation from the depths of any sane person's nightmares, that of the dead come to return vengeance three times over. No mortal weapon feasible against it.

"Come on, Asami!"

I blinked. The calico cat with a long tail was there, padding about and staring at me with its slitted eyes of supernatural gold, cast in the light of ghost fires. "T- Takaba-?"

"Yeah, it's me," said the cat. "Come along."

The cat, apparently Takaba, led Feilong and I out. Mortal enemies having allied in the face of impending danger, all bets had been called off the moment we were in the clear. Away from the ghoulies and ghosties and the long-legged beasties...

He had been wreathed in moonlight, you know.

* * *

If it were simply that Takaba's presence implied the supernatural, perhaps he would not have attracted my attention for so long.

A cat, trying to learn photography. It was, quite simply, the most paradoxical thing I had seen.

What would drive a cat to learn to speak in the human language, transform into a human form, and, despite all the challenges of biology and human society, try to work as a photographer simply for his art? It baffled me that such a thing would happen in this world. Such ambition that, even if the heavens did not allow him to choose his own creation, he still persevered for his fate and lost none of the lustre of that which lived without heed of morality, but with the thirst to do _something_.

The night of the day that I finally met his Godmother face-to-face – aside from the moment she capsized Feilong's casino ship to Kowloon Bay, or that moment she interrupted in Bali – was the night that I realised when Takaba had become Akihito.

No, he'd been Akihito long before that – when I pulled him to Aokigahara out of guilt, maybe. And when he had paid me a call that saved me a trip to Gifu and death by unexplained fire, and again with the oddest bouquet order I had ever made. He'd gotten shot escaping from it, and I had gotten shot defending my cat.

Perhaps the thought of fucking a monster should have given me pause? I meant that in any sense, because monster or not, Akihito was still more human than the other monsters in human skin that dwelt in my world. He made no pretences of what he was. Even as he was drowning, he reached out to me-

Tonight he was here, in my bed, after a long trip from the fields of Adachi, haunted by their infamous demon hag. Warm and safe and dry and alive.

Also, thoroughly convinced about refusing my proposal to Kyō Kaigara, that bitch of a godmother-in-law who'd set vampiric flying heads after me. Aren't fairy godmothers supposed to marry off their godchildren? I had to spend long hours to convince him otherwise, that we could be good together.

"You'll be staying tonight, of course." I lay between his long legs, somehow so long in proportion and svelte, and yet strong enough to provide jumping power equivalent to a cat.

"Yeah. Left a note." He hesitated just a second, then dipped his head down and kissed me, mouth closed but lips soft and warm against mine. It was chaste and simple for a long moment.

I could have made it filthy – Akihito was very much a tomcat in behaviour, even if he didn't quite show it. A lot of our interactions in relation to sex was resolved when I realised on hindsight he was acting like a female cat – in the animal kingdom, the females had the choice of mates. I did not deepen it.

It was a first kiss for him. He seemed shocked by this, unsure if it was allowed.

There were several tales like our relationship in folklore. Most of them never ended happily.

Were he human, I would have a number of ways to bind him to me. Simple proximity, perhaps – as a human, he could not have ways to evade my guards, nor strength to fight his way out, nor speed to run, nor healing at rates that made me envious. He would dwell forever in the palm of my hand, unable to work more magic than the natural charm of his personality – which was more than enough, but still within the bounds of human fallibility. He would not be an existence of ontological implications so deep, that I required an extra hour of thought before I finally resolved to permanently welcome a new addition to the house of Asami.

Akihito had stopped the kiss, and was now squinting at me in the darkness of the half-darkness of the bedroom. He'd confessed before, that he could see in the dark, but not in great detail, and that his eyes changed back to human eyes with _akatsuki_ , the dawn of the real world. "Are you _laughing_ , Asami?!"

There was a timidness that refused to be fucked out of him there. I had made several game attempts already. I chose to find it endearing.

"Fuck you, Asami!" Akihito slumped back onto the bed. "Why do I keep running into you, really?! Actually, why do I keep coming back to you at all... lousy choice for a _tsukimono-suji_."

I had heard of that term. A typewritten dossier had arrived in my mailbox, detailing the implications of taking in a _bakeneko_. For one, I would likely curse the descendants of the Asami from my line with their status as hereditary witches and employers of ghosts – in this case, ghost, singular.

Of all places, the fact that a stray cat, newly sentient and recently exposed to the human world, would come to my arms for a home simply boggles my mind. I stroked his hair as he continued to mumble nonsense on the way to dreamland.

"Damn you, Asami... I swear, when the sun rises I'm going to leave for the _youkai_ world and never come back..."

Did he know what he did to me? What kind of perceptions he had twisted beyond recognition? How far the world he belonged to reached? How small I felt next to his feats, and how large I could feel when he admired my strength? This was an encounter to be had for once in a lifetime, and never would I let this end.

Perhaps, there were other dreams and nightmares of the world of demons and darkness.

I suppose, in a way, I already had it.

Let them come, then. This cannot end.

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_


End file.
